Artist Miki Iwasaki works on a portion of his installation, "Signalscape," at Woodbury University School of Architecture, where he also teaches. Comprised of 16 panels, each with 37 illuminated boxes, the piece was installed at the San Diego International Airport Terminal One baggage claim in mid-November.— Howard Lipin

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Artist Miki Iwasaki works on a portion of his installation, "Signalscape," at Woodbury University School of Architecture, where he also teaches. Comprised of 16 panels, each with 37 illuminated boxes, the piece was installed at the San Diego International Airport Terminal One baggage claim in mid-November.
— Howard Lipin

Your departure was late, you were seated in front of a crying child, and now you are rushing toward the baggage claim at San Diego International Airport’s Terminal One, wondering if your suitcase made it. Understandably, you are a little stressed.

Just before you get to the Southwest Airlines carousel, you notice a large wooden grid with gently undulating lights and you realize they shift depending on the people moving beneath them. You take in the lights, you look at the people, you may even shift your position to see if your movements also affect the pattern. Suddenly, you are not feeling quite as anxious.

“That tends to be the nature of my work,” said San Diego artist and architect Miki Iwasaki, whose “Signalscape” was installed at the airport last week. “I don’t want to have things that create anxiety, that create more stimulation. I want to do something that allows you to be more introspective.”

Iwasaki’s work is the latest in a series of public art commissions the airport has initiated since the San Diego Regional Airport Authority took over the facility in 2003 from the Port of San Diego.

Guided by a master plan developed in 2006 by the airport’s art program manager Constance White and funded by an airport authority mandate that 2 percent of certain public area construction costs be applied to art, the airport’s ambitious art program aspires to “lead the world in vision, innovation and design” and include a diversity of art and artists from the San Diego region.

“Art has become an integrated part of our facilities and the daily operation of the airport,” said Thella Bowens, the Airport Authority’s President and CEO. “From my perspective, it fits into the vision of what the airport is because our job is to create a travelers’ experience that is efficient, satisfying, and to a certain extent, unique. Everything we do with public art helps us to achieve that.”

When the authority took control of the airport from the Port of San Diego, it inherited a collection of public art that was uneven at best, a civic embarrassment at worst. But under White’s leadership, and with the assistance of an arts advisory committee and an artist selection panel that includes representatives from local arts organizations, the airport’s art fortunes are improving.

White oversees a performance series and three separate visual arts programs: A set of display cases with rotating exhibits generally reflecting local arts or arts-related organizations; temporary exhibits that primarily showcase local artists, and permanent works of “public art,” such as Iwasaki’s new $180,000 project.

The $1 billion expansion of Terminal Two, the largest construction effort in the airport’s history, will include roughly $6 million worth of art and art-related projects. Nine artists have been contracted to deliver installations in 2013, when the “Green Build” is scheduled for completion, and an additional three will be commissioned early next year.

“The airport is a front door and a back door to the region,” said White, previously public art program coordinator for the city of Dallas. “One of the things we want to do is provide a cultural peekaboo to the traveling public as to what San Diego has to offer. We’re more than just a beach town. We’re more than just a military town. There’s a richness here that a lot of people don’t really think about.”

The art of airports

Although art has been evident in some airports for more than a half century (visitors to Pittsburgh may remember the Calder mobile that hung in the old airport’s main terminal starting in the late ’50s), it has taken on greater importance over the past decade.

“We started doing arts and the airport workshops in 2002,” said Greg Mamary, the producer/special projects for the American Association of Airport Executives. “We don’t have any solid numbers, but it’s safe to say the number of airports who are getting involved with art programs has grown.”

White estimates that approximately 100 airports have art programs, and both she and Mamary attribute the increased interest in airport art to concerns following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“When that happened, the airport became a kind of scary, stressful and unpleasant place,” Mamary said. “Airports were trying to find a way to make it a more pleasant experience and a good art and culture program can help do that. It entertains passengers. It interests them. It relaxes them. There’s no question.”

The importance of art at airports has grown to the point where recently completed projects in San Francisco and Indianapolis have integrated art into the project’s architecture, much as San Diego is doing with its “Green Build,” which includes art in at least a dozen new locations, whether pedestrian bridges, an elevated roadway, or a new USO facility.

“If you walked through the terminals, you probably noticed the early art at the airport is mostly stand alone art,” said the Airport Authority’s Bowens. “It’s been developed as a piece here and a piece there. But with the new facility and all the other projects we’re developing, we’re really focusing on how you integrate the art into the facility. So what you will find in the new facility is art as a part of the wayfinding, art of part of the overall look of the new concession terminal. In everything from the floor to the lighting, to the ceilings themselves, we are trying to find ways to integrate the art.”

High aspirations

For his new “Signalscape,” Iwasaki didn’t have the benefit of a new, malleable space. The Terminal One baggage claim is an appendage that has the scars of numerous layers of renovation.

“It’s a very very tough space,” Iwasaki said. “You are competing with so many different elements, so much stimulation, whether its security or signage or noise or angry passengers — whatever. I wanted to do something that wasn’t screaming at you.”

His ingenious work quietly attracts your attention, and while he can’t predict an individual’s response, he is hopeful that the installation might prompt a larger realization about our connection with our environment.

“Everything that’s made in the public sphere — whether it’s a building, a car, whatever it is — has a response to people,” Iwasaki said. “Even though it’s filtered through layers and layers of systems, or money, or companies, or jurisdictions, we do influence our built environment.”

The airport’s aspirations for the piece are decidedly less lofty, but perhaps inevitably more practical.

“That art is really being used to solve a problem that we had in that terminal,” Bowens said. “If you come down to that area, and you looked in there, it was really very unsightly. So the art is not only a beautiful piece aesthetically, it’s going to camouflage some of that unsightly view as you come down the escalator.”

That in itself may prove to be stress-relieving.

For its terminal expansion project — the “Green Build” — the airport will spend more than $6 million on public art. Here are the nine projects under contract, scheduled for completion in 2013. An additional three projects (including restroom entry walls, passenger waiting room window bays, and a collaborative project between an artist and airport workers) will be commissioned early next year.

Jim Campbell (San Francisco), “The Journey”: An MIT graduate who has frequently worked with lights and technology, Campbell will create a 7-foot-wide light ribbon made of tiny spheres that will run 700 feet, guiding passengers from the security area into the gate area.

Living Lenses — Louise Bertelsen and Po Shu Wang (San Francisco), “Relativator”: Bertelsen and Wang have a project on hold commissioned by the City of San Diego for a yet unbuilt East Village Park. For the airport, they will use an elevator to demonstrate the invisible phenomenon of gravity waves.

Camille Utterback (San Francisco), “Chill Zone”: A winner of the MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant whose work is exhibited in contemporary art and technology museums worldwide, Utterback will design a multimedia media environment, using audio archives, “intended to provide travelers with the opportunity to escape.”

Harries/Héder Collaborative — Mags Harries and Lajos Héder (Cambridge, MA), Performance Cube: The 21-year-old collaborative’s project, which transforms into a micro-cinema when it’s not in use for live activities, will provide a stage for the airport’s performance program.

Merge Conceptual Design — Franka Diehnelt and Claudia Reisenberger (Santa Monica), “Sublimare” (on new departures roadway): Merge will place illuminated cutouts of kelp fronds on the new elevated departures roadway. The kelp theme will continue on the glass facades of the departure pavilion and at night reference the ocean’s bioluminescent phenomenon.

Norie Sato (Seattle), Reflection Room: Sato, whose recent work includes two large, glass murals in the San Francisco International Airport’s new Terminal Two, will create a contemplative environment inspired by San Diego’s natural aesthetics.

Roy McMakin (Seattle), Portraits on pedestrian bridges windows: A UCSD graduate who has a public mural in La Jolla and is represented by Quint Contemporary Art, McMakin will do a series of sculpted, bronze window portraits whose diversity of size, tone and content will reflect the diversity of travelers using the airport.

coLAB Studio (Tempe, AZ), Installation United Service Organizations (USO) facility: With credits including the Arizona 9/11 memorial, coLAB will create 15 house-shaped structures that will flow from the exterior courtyard, inside, and back outside again, that emphasize themes of connection and community.